Because I am incredibly anal, more than a touch obsessive-compulsive and I generally just like stats, I went through my Ipod to figure out which bands/artists had the greatest representation among the nearly 5000 songs.  Here’s what I found:

R.E.M. - 149 songs
Dave Matthews - 107 songs
U2 - 64 songs
Indigo Girls - 48 songs
Counting Crows - [...]

First of all, let me say for the record that my wife will probably object to being deemed responsible for all of these songs.  And, of course, she’s right.  Some of these I can blame on my children — yeah, I’m looking at you, four-year-old who loves Pocketful of Sunshine.  Really the culprit for these [...]

Spend some time with me and my Ipod and you’ll find that I have a soft spot for covers.  A good cover, in my mind, is recognizable as the original song, yet is a completely new animal.  A good cover has evolved.  Suddenly, you can’t quite imagine anyone but the new artist singing it (even [...]

There are certain things that make me feel old. One of those things is the idea that bands used to make albums. My musical awareness began when you could still buy LPs. Side one had different songs than side two — and someone thought about what should be where. A sides, [...]

Sometimes I wonder why some songs are huge hits and other songs are ignored.  It just doesn’t make sense why Float On by Modest Mouse goes Top 40 and Autoclave by The Mountain Goats (see below) doesn’t.  They seem equally catchy to me.  I suppose it has something to do with marketing and dumb luck.
Anyway, [...]

I’m pretty predictable.  There are certain things that function as behavioral triggers for me.  You know — ring a bell leads to drooling.  That kind of thing.  So, whenever a song comes on the Ipod that’s, well, a tad bit out of sync with the rest of the playlist, I inevitably say to my wife, [...]